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The line was opened in 1878 by the Bromley Direct Railway Company which was then taken over by South Eastern Railway almost immediately. The original station consisted as many did in the early days of a timber buildings and even boasted a disused railway carriage as office space. The line was electrified in 1925 and shortly beforehand the station underwent refurbishment. Gone were the timber buildings and in came more substantial buildings that are still in use today. The new buildings were designed by the Southern Railways chief architect James Robb Scott. The line served the London terminals of Holborn Viaduct, Victoria, London Bridge, Cannon Street and Charing Cross. Where the current concourse on Tweedy Road is now originally had a turntable which can be seen from the map in the gallery below.
When electrification happened, the goods yards was included so as to allow the berthing of the Southern Railway’s EMUs. The good yard had all traffic removed in 1968 as part of the axe wielded by Dr. Richard Beeching on behalf of Ernest Marples.
By 1976 the station only had a peak hour service direct from London and then from 1990 services were only the shuttles from Grove Park necessitating a change of train there. In 1990 the station received Grade II listed status. Could the line have a direct service again to London? Maybe not Victoria as there are a lot of direct services to there and also now to Blackfriars on the current Thameslink services.
Passenger use at Bromley North has fluctuated over the years. In 2014-15 the station had 661,088 passengers but the following period it dropped by 18.79% to 536,856. Numbers had declined and when the Covid-19 pandemic hit there figures plummeted to just 63,164 (period 20/21). Passenger numbers are on the increase in the 2021/22 period when they climbed to 149,850. Hopefully they will climb even more to pre pandemic levels. Maybe a peak service to Cannon Street or Charing Cross could resume in the future this would also increase numbers.
Below is a gallery of photos taken at Bromley North in November 2022. Looking at the sparsely used station of today it’s hard to imagine the hustle and bustle of it in its peak years.
